Diesel's street margin is 36.7 cents a gallon thinner than a month ago

The retail-wholesale diesel spread is 1.104 now, down over the past 30 days. Retail diesel is 5.599, up 4.7% in a month and sitting at 98% of its 30-day range, close to the high of 5.652. Wholesale did not stay put while that happened. ULSD diesel futures are 4.528, up 19.3% over the same 30 days and at 90% of their range. Wholesale ran up almost four times as fast as the pump, so the room between what you buy at and what you sell at got smaller.

For a hauler or a jobber, that is the squeeze you can feel. The pump number looks near a monthly high, which reads like a good month, but the margin behind it is the thinnest it has been in 30 days. If you are buying rack and selling street, you are working on less per gallon than you were four weeks ago even though the sign out front says more.

Crude is behind the move. WTI is 90.42, up 20.2% in 30 days, and Brent is 94.71, up 19.2%. Both are past the middle of their range. The 3:2:1 crack spread is 54.8, down 2.61 over the month, so refiner margin tightened too, though it is still a healthy number. Petroleum inventories are 424.46, up 4.3% and only at 33% of their range, so there is more product in tanks than the price rise alone would suggest.

Watch whether retail catches up to wholesale in the next week or two. If crude holds near 90 and futures stay high, street diesel could keep climbing toward that 5.652 top, which may give the retail-wholesale spread back some of the ground it lost.